


i know i don’t want to leave here without you.

by clizzyhours



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: A LOT of thoughts and process, AU, Angst, Clary-centric, Clizzy - Freeform, Different Writing Styles, F/F, Pining, Post 3.22, Post canon, Tenderness (I HOPE), artist!Clary, clary deals with Feelings, clary is chaotic at some moments, descriptive a LOT, i pretend to know about art, isabelle constantly stars, it's what i do, lesbian!clary, mourning in a sense, muse!izzy, remembering somewhat in a sense, seriously au; ignoring clace, unedited atm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-01 18:25:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19183288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clizzyhours/pseuds/clizzyhours
Summary: Clary sees her again and again and again in dreams. She's everywhere and nowhere. Or the AU where Clary longs for someone she can't remember, Isabelle is 'everywhere' but not really, and the 3.22 AU we deserve.





	i know i don’t want to leave here without you.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [izzymalec](https://archiveofourown.org/users/izzymalec/gifts), [sapphfics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphfics/gifts).



> clary x isabelle.  
> post 3.22/au at the end of 3.22.  
> dedicated to my fellow clizzy lovers and as well as friends (u know who you are!!)  
> thank you so much.

Clary is painting again with fingers fervently stroking the canvas in a rush of splattered colors. It’s an almost furious need, an urge to cover the blank slate with color. Paints are scattered across the thread-bared table in an unorganized manner. Oils and pencils spill forth from a small rectangular box, sketch pads stacked on top of one another.

One drawing book is open with haphazard sketches of a dark-haired woman. Another sketchpad is shut tightly with loose drawings of intricate black marks and creatures out of a high-notch SFX film. 

Several canvases line the wall on propped easels, some individually blank while others have a drawing or painting.

She can’t stop drawing or painting as brief images spark inside her mind. They are quick flurries and not quite familiar, but not entirely foreign either. Something tangled and interconnected like a tight lasso, knots refusing to unfurl. Every time she pushes upon an image, her head aches and she’s struggle against the weight of pain.

One brief image continuously echoes throughout her brain. A woman with long dark hair and pretty red lips. A hint of strange tattoos? It’s never clear - more of a smear or like broken up puzzle pieces. Clary sees her in dreams occasionally and she doesn’t understand. Fleeting dreams, thoughts, imagery of strange and otherworldly visuals and yet this particular picture is imprinted in her consciousness, clinging tightly and refusing to let go.

There’s something she is missing and she recognizes this, but her mind is a locked cage refusing to budge.

Her hand is beginning to cramp after long hours of sketching and painting, but she doesn’t want to stop.

She loses herself in her art frequently but there’s a sense of urgency now.

If she stops, she’ll lose the image (of the woman) and if she loses the image, she misplaces a piece of herself.

She keeps going until her arm cramps, her eyes well with muddiness and her brain wants to sink into blissful slumber.

Her sketch pencil clatters to the ground after pressing heavy indents into her image, the lines severe and harsh. Clary’s arm aches and she feels dissatisfied with emptiness turning her stomach. She breathes heavily, her paints nearly falling off the little stool in the midst of her clumsiness.

It’s not perfect, she thinks, staring at her pictures with intensity.

They need to be perfect. They have too. She presents in the Brooklyn Academy of Art’s gallery in less than three days and she needs this painting to be absolutely perfect. Some of her art pieces have already been carefully picked and selected, ready to be shown to the world of wealthy guests, rich critics, and interested parties.

But this? This, she wants for herself.

Clary takes one last long look at her art and heads out the studio, the lights shutting off automatically behind her leaving a world of darkness. The door swings shut and she is back inside her place. Her apartment is modern and the perfect size for her with vast windows that overlook Brooklyn’s skyscrapers and enormous buildings. She can see the dark horizon, surprisingly clear for the New York skyline dotted with illuminated stars, the moon hanging brightly and calling out to her loves.

The scenery is beautiful but leaves a gaping ache inside of her. She turns away and heads into her bedroom with green walls, warm furniture and an over-sized canopy bed with actual Egyptian sheets and blankets. Her endless pillows are propped up against her bed. A mixture of art, photography, and pop culture are scattered throughout, so thoroughly her.

In the bathroom, she washes her hands to erase the charcoal and paint and ink that swirl in an endless blend down the drain. She glances at her reflection. Fiery red hair cascading in messy waves, sweaty bangs sticking to her forehead. Haunted green eyes and dark circles under her eyes. 

She doesn’t look like herself, but then again, she hadn't felt like herself in the longest of time.

Clary’s reflection looks like a ghost and she turns away, splashing water onto her face before turning off the light and slipping into bed.

In her dreams, she sees the dark-haired woman again and she yearns.

–-

She has two days to prepare for her show and By The Angel, she thinks. She has so much to do and the nerves are slowly slithering up her spine, coiling around her neck like a cobra as they make their way into her lungs. 

The anxiety is undoubtedly real and her heartbeat palpitates rapidly. She is sitting at her island with a rainbow mug full of steaming hot coffee, sipping in increments. Caffeine is unlikely to help her nerves but it sure as hell will help her art.

Her iPhone is sprawled on the table as she swipes through her schedule. Clary has notifications from a few friends, an email from one of her art professors, and an alert about her exhibit.

She quickly reads through her alerts then gets up, vanishing back into her room to dress in something relatively nice.

Her bag is ready and she grabs her sketch pads with her miscellaneous art items hand-in-hand as she heads out the door, winding down the staircase into the cool autumn day.

The wind whips across her face and she is grateful for the cold - it makes her feel more awake, more alive and in-tune with people passing by her. Not that New Yorker’s waved or said hello to random strangers or literally to anyone, but it’s the thought that counts.

Her low-heeled boots make a soft click against the concrete sidewalk as she weaves in and out of busy traffic. The plan is simple but routinely. She catches a taxi or an Uber, cautious of whose driving. It’s New York after all. She will go to Central Park and sit on a bench, legs crossed and lost in thought before she has to head to class or to her school’s studios. Sometimes she will sketch and draw, other times she people watches. It’s like she’s waiting for the other shoe to drop or more specifically, for somebody to appear.

She has been doing this for what feels like forever, but somewhere inside of her just knows the reason why. She wishes she knew why, but like every wisp, it’s gone.

Time passes and she wanders across Central Park, alive with chatter and the roaring noise of the city in the background.

Her art is still in her hand or in her bag as she makes her way across the green landscape, expanding over twenty two acres of land. Trees have already changed colors - a world of orange, brunt brown and red, the leaves plummeting to the ground. Last remnants of green plants are poking from the ground while colorful flowers droop, petals loosely scattered, nature adapting and giving into autumn’s late months.

A few birds remain while ducks swim in the cold but murky lake. Clary finds her regular spot and sits, settling into the coolness of the bench. Art is propped against her, and she heaves a sigh as her body relaxes from the massive weight.

She isn’t weak. In fact, she is rather strong as she likes to go to the gym and take self-defense classes. 

You try walking in a pair of heeled boots with an insurmountable of art. She lets out a tiny laugh, her mind unconsciously thinking of a woman who could easily.

The air is cool and god, she loves autumn and the crisp atmosphere. Autumn is change and rebirth and death all at once. 

She thinks of her missing mother and her missing father figure, of a best friend who disappeared into a world she cannot follow. (How does she know that?)

Clary remembers stumbling out of an empty lot in front of an abandoned church, wandering the city in darkness with streaming tears and aching for something wholeheartedly. 

She remembers venturing into a late night restaurant where an older woman had taken pity upon her, giving her an over-sized comforter and hot chocolate. She recalls thinking that she had nowhere to go and remembers the next day; a mysterious envelope with cursive initials: M. B. L had appeared.

Her hands had held the envelope, tracing the embroiled gold. She unfurled the letter inside, she recalls, with heartfelt words that made her weep in front of the compassionate woman.

There were instructions, cash, and a key. She had zero reason to trust it and yet she couldn’t help but trust the enigma anyways.

It felt like a piece of her had come back and within days, she found herself adapting to a new but normative world. 

She’s good with change, she thinks.

The sun is beginning to peek from underneath massive gray clouds, pink and yellow streaking into the early morning. 

People stroll by in warm coats as they cradle iPhone’s or a Starbucks coffee cup. One young woman is jogging by with a firm grasp around her golden retriever’s blue leash. An elderly couple is sitting among another bench sharing a sweet pastry and the display is almost sickening. Kids scurry by, laughing and pointing out the scenery. 

She instantly thinks about Simon and her heart breaks, mind flashing back to elementary-middle-high-school, memories swirling together in one quick burst. And god, that is something she can’t handle two days away from her opening exhibit.

Her mind should be focused upon her art and she should be prepping, but the idea of leaving Central Park terrifies her. The world of Brooklyn Academy of Art awaits her and it feels like a death trap.

There’s so much to do and she knows her professors have told her again and again of the aspiring talent, oh, the potential she has, you are going to do such fantastic things, the lines she swears that nearly every art student hears.

It doesn’t make the fear lessen nor does it stop her stomach feeling like curdled milk.

Her fingers trace her bag, slides against her materials, so desperately wanting a steady anchor.

More people rush by as they venture out of the park into the bustling city streets. In the most cliche aspect, something straight out of a movie, her eyes are fixated upon a young woman striding forward with cascading dark hair, ruby lips, and a tight body-con red dress paired with a contrasting bold leather jacket and knee high boots.

Clary is well-aware of the fact she is blatantly staring and most likely creeping out several passerby’s, but could anyone honestly blame her?

The woman is stunning and oh, she sees the black marks. The strange tattoos that linger in her dreams.

There’s no way, she thinks. It can’t be possible.

Dreams are dreams and pretty girls do not appear out of thin air into reality.

Is she dreaming right now? Did she accidentally drink bad coffee and is now presumably seeing pretty girls from a dream?

She’s still staring, afraid to let the woman out of her sight. The dream woman is on her phone, dark brown eyes gazing down.

Clary is enthralled, scared, freaking out internally, and feeling very gay all in one instantaneous second. 

She should really stop staring. It’s really hard not to look away. Dreams aren’t reality. 

The woman is getting closer and closer, approaching Clary’s vicinity. She’s preoccupied still and in one panicked moment, Clary throws herself over the bench and rolls onto the grass, her art materials spilling forth next to her.

Okay, yeah, not her wisest decision. She winces from the pain, a bruise likely forming. 

Clary remains on the ground until the dream girl with the strange markings disappears from sight.

She has no idea if the woman had spotted her and she also has the painstakingly realization she has badly botched this up.

(And yet - she knows it wasn’t time to meet yet.)

Clary groans and flops over.

–-

For months, she has been dealing with brief images and quick flashes. She thinks of a pulsing nightclub and a silvery white costume. A sword shining in the moonlight. Glowing green eyes and a snarling mouth. Creatures roaming in the dark.

None of them make sense and half the time she attributes these images, these dreams to the supernatural shows she devours on Netflix. And Hulu. And Amazon Prime.

Okay so maybe she really has a thing for supernatural women with glowing eyes. In TV shows, of course. 

Sometimes she thinks there is something more out there, lurking in the shadows and ready to consume.

Her eyes sometimes flicker upon people with strange marks and appearances before they disappear into the vast New York City city streets. Perked up ears? She doesn’t know what - how to describe these uncanny situations. 

She has never tried to approach these people, these otherworldly auras because how can you explain that?

How can you explain the unknown to a person?

In the news, she has seen reports of strange circumstances and wonders if, if it is, if it could be. Other times, she buries these feelings down, down, down. 

It’s like she can’t. She’s stuck and she doesn’t - can’t explain this to anyone. Not even to herself.

The only comfort she derides from is the woman in her dreams. A safety net and an anchor all at once. 

And yet. She can’t stop drawing and sketching and painting. The images consume and consume and consume her and she has to put them down onto paper, onto canvases.

Lately, it’s frenetic and furious and fierce. She can’t make this situation, these dreams, this otherness make sense. 

She has no answers and nobody can salvage this but her.

It’s like she’s a pawn with no control. If she pushes on her dreams, thoughts, images, she receives pain and if she doesn’t, her emotions boil over and spill out. A string of guilt, sorrow, and fear will swallow her up.

She can’t ask questions but she gets quick images, pain and madness, a dream come to life, and all-consuming art.

\--

That night, she dreams once more.

Her dreams recur one person -- one woman, but this dream feels different. A turning point. Color seeps through and she can see more so than usual.

The dream feels alert, alive.

She’s walking across a smooth floor and comes across an enormous wooden door. Her hands press upon the door and like magic, the door swings open.

She can.

She can see weaponry and tools in a uniform manner. Nothing looks out of place and the room feels homely and loved, radiating with passion.

It’s like the dream is shifting into place, she thinks. More color spills over and the atmosphere feels brighter. 

She sees.

She sees her.

The dark hair and the red lips and wait, is that her? Herself? Approaching the dark-haired woman?

Confusion is bubbling inside of herself and the dream is fracturing, breaking down. A breaking down car. Puzzle pieces falling out of place.

The color is reversing, trickling back. She doesn’t understand.

Clary awakes with a gasp and an intense migraine, stumbling through her apartment in pure darkness, sifting through her cabinets for pain medication, struggling and trying and god, she doesn’t understand.

She doesn’t fall back to sleep until the early morning, rays of dawn seeping red and yellow and pink into the blue morning sky.  
\--

Stress is consuming her. She can’t stop drinking coffee and god, she’s struggling to finish her final piece.

In the art studio, Clary is furiously preoccupied. Paints and oils and charcoal pencils are scattered throughout. Paper is strewn and she can see the paint smudged on her overalls. Her hands are dotted with greenblueblack. Canvases are propped lopsided, tilted at angles that would scare anyone else not used to this chaos and her final art piece is in front of her.

It took a lot of arguing and convincing to give her extra time for this art piece. She had promised perfection and she will deliver perfection.

She wants this to be perfect.

It has to be perfect from every head to toe, inch and centimeter and radius.

The black hair is pure ink, reminiscent of the night sky. Blueblack details, she’s trying so hard. Every color is selected just so. Dark brown and light browns and muted browns swirled together in palettes, tested across strips.

Each shade has to be right, for the skin, for the eyes, for the features.

Clary has been so careful and she needs, needs this to be perfect.

Tomorrow will bring change in ways she hasn’t realized yet, but in the mere time, she is focused upon her final art piece. She can’t focus upon dreams or images or her own melancholy. Time is trickling away and she plans on bringing her very best.

She can’t disappoint. She will not disappoint.

She needs this.

The painting is her lifeline and she can’t help but hope.  
\--

Clary can’t help but want to throw herself over a balcony or a skyscraper or literally anywhere that isn’t here.

The exhibit opens in less than minutes and she’s so petrified that she feels like she could disappear instantly.

Everyone will be here and is here. The wealthy and pompous, particularly white elites. New York’s finest art critics. Her professors and teachers and fellow students. People who received an invitation in lovely scripture and embroidered envelopes and curious parties who are ready to deliver judgment.

So in conclusion, everyone is here and Clary wishes she could escape.

Clary wishes her mom was here or Luke or anyone with a friendly face, and wow, this thought strikes a chord in her.

She feels unbelievably alone and how can she do this, oh god, By The Angel. She can’t stop panicking and she knows she has less than a few seconds to plaster on a lovely smile and make small talk with esteemed invitees.

Her outfit is a pretty blouse tucked into an expensive skirt, her hair curly with makeup carefully applied. 

The room is lively with background music pouring from the speakers. People in expensive suits and dresses and outfits circle the room like vultures. Art is propped up on easels and her various works are now exposed to the world.

She can spy her fellow students’ art on easels in a multitude of colors and unique concepts. Clary takes a moment to breathe before turning back to glance at her own crafted and selected pieces.

Her art is mostly abstract - a swirl of colors and a cacophony of vivid visuals. Inside of her, she has all these images and dreams and stories ready to be unrevealed.

The irony is? She doesn’t know what.

Her final piece has yet to be revealed as it’s currently tucked under a brilliantly white sheet. She can spy a black woman making her way to her in a formal red blouse and dark pants, her smile widening upon seeing Clary.

“I love this. Is this all yours? Are they all abstract?” She says, looking at Clary with curious dark eyes.

Clary nods and realizes, yeah, okay, she needs to actually speak to people. Does she go into her spiel? Does she speak from the heart?

“Yes!” Clary blurts out, eyes widening slightly. “They are all abstract. Well, most of them. They are from dreams and uncovered feelings like an unspoken story.”

The words come natural to her and she finds herself spilling to the intrigued woman, speaking from the heart and of the truth.

She can’t quite make out what her dreams mean, but wow, she certainly feels better saying her feelings out loud for once.

“Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it,” Clary hears her say and she beams. Is that what it feels like to have your art truly acknowledged?

“Thank you,” She says excitedly as the woman turns to look at her next piece.

From the corner of her eye, she sees her. A young woman staring at her in a resplendent red dress with her beautiful dark hair in pin-tight curls, lipstick red as ever. She’s mingling in the crowd, but Clary can see that she is focused upon her.

Her tattoos are on display and Clary is so very intrigued. She’s a vision. A dream and a beauty come to life and so very real.

The day at the park wasn’t a dream and Clary is not sure how to feel about that quite yet, but she’s enthralled all over again.

The woman disappears quickly into the crowd and Clary blinks. She shakes her head and turns back to her art, her heart aching and yearning.

She sees one of her painting professors nodding and realizes, oh yes, it’s time. At the podium, on top of the stage, she and three other artists are supposed to present their top and final piece. Clary follows her professor’s lead as she and the group make their way over. In one straight row, golden easels hold stunning art pieces, the white sheet billowing off individually.

Each art piece is beautiful in its own way. One shows the judging guests and delighted people, a world of splashed color in boxed up layers. A second painting is reminiscent of Monet. The third painting is more in-depth as it reveals people and words interconnected, the colors rich in hue.

Clary’s last. She can feel what feels like millions of eyes on her and her painting; an image of the woman from her dreams. Rich dark hair in the most gentle of hues. Beautiful brown eyes and skin and shimmering black marks across the woman’s body. Each color and shade precise and carefully selected. The colors are contrasted and stark and she feels nothing but proud. In the corner of the painting, her signature is flourished across. On the easel, the golden title is emblazoned with ‘to yearn, to love, and seek forth.’

Her eyes survey the crowd and in the back, she sees the woman with shiny eyes and a heartbreaking smile. She looks radiant but proud and Clary can feel something break inside.

The woman turns to disappear and Clary can feel herself moving off the stage, following the woman’s lead into the sea of people. She can’t let her escape again or watch her leave her all over again.

She can’t. “Hey! What did you think?” She finds herself asking, gambling for more time. Stalling for a mere moment.

The woman freezes and Clary thinks, oh, this it.

“You can see me?” She blurts out and Clary can’t help but laugh. 

She has disappeared nearly three times at this point and that’s what she has to say? Clary’s mind has a handful of questions and she knows this woman is the key to unlocking everything.

“Of course, I can see you.”

The woman looks astonished and sends a pleading, an almost goodbye look at Clary, vanishing once more in her red dress into the dark of the night.

No, she thinks. Her eyes had said everything.

Clary runs.

“Hey! Wait!” She shouts.

The woman is striding forward confidently, her heels clacking loudly in the dimly lit outdoors. Clary calls again and she abruptly stops and slowly turns around, her dark eyes revealing a world of emotion that Clary cannot decipher.

But she knows it’s connected to her. It has to be. 

“I know you,” Clary says. 

The woman is staring at her again and she shakes her head twice, whispering no. Clary can’t help but feel a tinge of hurt, a hidden emotion running through her.

She doesn’t think shyness, the whispered ‘no’ fits her. Clary knows that the woman is so much more than that.

“I do know you,” She states simply like it’s the answer to everything and nothing at once. “Isabelle. It’s Isabelle.”

Isabelle suits her and she can’t imagine any other name for her. 

“Yes,” Isabelle says, an almost gasp as if she can’t believe this is happening. Her dark eyes hold intrigue and curiosity and awe. 

Isabelle, Isabelle, Isabelle, her mind, heart, and body sing.

I know you, I know I do.

Clary can feels a smile making its way onto her face, and she can’t stop glancing at Isabelle.

It feels like everything is falling into their rightful slots, she thinks as she approaches closer to Isabelle.

The dream girl turned reality. No. Not dream girl. More of a memory. A long lost memory returning back to her. She knows her, she knows this, deep inside of her bones, etched into her brain.

“I am Clary,” She says and Isabelle smiles, and god, she is so lost. Her smile is like a ray of sunshine and Clary is absorbing her warmth and radiance.

Isabelle smiles and smiles and smiles.

Clary can feel herself moving closer, closer, closer. Her hands reach out to Isabelle’s face before dropping them, her red lips inches from Clary.

Clary wants to speak, to say something. She looks at Isabelle - her eyes, lips, sleek hair, the dark tattoos across her neck. Her fingers barely brush Isabelle’s and she’s very close. 

She thinks of her dreams and the what-ifs, of the park, and of her endless sketches. Her final painting. She thinks of wanting and yearning and pining. The grief and the aching and the questioning. She thinks of everything from the past year and of everything she does still not recall. 

Clary feels less like a ghost and more human, more other than she has felt in forever. Isabelle grasps her hand, interlocking their fingers. 

“I love the painting,” Isabelle whispers, says, and Clary feels hope growing in her chest. She knows.

Nothing is fixed and nothing is permanent and they are so many renewals to occur for them and their lives, but in the darkness of the night with a full moon hanging above as millions of stars shine across the New York horizon, Isabelle and Clary walk off hand-in-hand. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much yet again & i hope you enjoyed. <3


End file.
